Words

In *glances at the clock* 45 minutes I'm going to start my new book. I say 'new' because I write one, or at least part of one, every year & have since '03. I, and at last count a couple hundred thousand other people, subject ourselves to this peculiar insanity ever November by trying to write a whole novel before the month is out.

The official target is 50,000 words. And if you think that sounds crazy or impossible, know that you're not alone. Every year people from supporters to bloggers to even the participants themselves think NaNoWrriMo (The National Novel Writing Month, nanowrimo.org) is insurmountable. It certainly sounded that way to me when, all those years ago, my friend IMed me, frantic, a 9:30 Halloween night going "OMG! I just agreed to do this thing & you have to do it with me!!" I'd never heard of NaNo (which was in its third or forth year, I think, by that point) & had never written, even collectively, 50k words. I didn't think I'd ever be able to finish, and as it happened, I was right...that year. My first NaNo novel was about 13k & change. Nowhere near the mark, but more than I'd ever written on anything in my life & I was amazed I'd managed it. Since then I've had varying degrees of success each go 'round (I skipped '07 entirely, I just blanked so hard!). Thus far I have two wins to my name, but even on years I didn't I always meet someone new, I always learn something I hadn't known before & I always get, at least part of, a whole new book. And so long as those three things keep happening, I'll keep coming back every year, win or lose.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well, for one, I have *glances again at the clock* another half an our before Kickoff in my timezone & I've got a bit of nervous energy to burn. For another, I just like words. I think they're important. Linguistics, the very study of language, is a branch of philosophy. Words aren't just random sounds & shapes that happen together, they're the iconography of thought. We, as a species, are communicative. Storytelling's in our blood.

Language, it seems, has been getting the bum's rush of late. Soundbites, TXTspeak & life in under 140 characters is becoming the way of things. It doesn't have to be like that. Words have power, they're living, evolving things. Don't believe me? Every year a group of words is deemed archaic enough to be pulled from the dictionary, while new ones, and indeed new meanings to old ones, replace them. When was the last time someone said something that totally made your day? When was the last time a word hurt? They say sticks & stones may break bones, but words will never hurt you, I think they have that backwards. Physicality comes & goes, but the marks from words can last forever.

So, in honor of NaNoWriMo, choose your words with a little more care, write something longer than a tweet, fatten up your vocabulary. You can do it. You may not know it, but you're a born storyteller.